Welcome to The Literature Network! We offer searchable online literature for the student, educator, or enthusiast. To find the work you're looking for start by looking through the author …

Contemporary literature adopts, discards, and modifies so many philosophical and aesthetic perspectives that holistic points of view like existentialism gets washed out by all the …

Victorian Literature Defining Victorian literature in any satisfactory and comprehensive manner has proven troublesome for critics ever since the nineteenth century came to a close. The …

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), American poet, critic, short story writer, and author of such macabre works as “The Fall of the House of Usher” (1840); I looked upon the scene before me …

Realism The dominant paradigm in novel writing during the second half of the nineteenth century was no longer the Romantic idealism of the earlier part of the century. What took hold among …

Advanced Search We have two search functions here at The Literature Network. Both functions will only search within one author at a time, to search through all the works of all the authors …

Naturalism The logical outgrowth of literary Realism was the point of view known as Naturalism. This literary movement, like its predecessor, found expression almost exclusively within the …

White Nights (1848) A sentimental story from the diary of a dreamer FIRST NIGHT It was a wonderful night, such a night as is only possible when we are young, dear reader. The sky …

The publication of Allen Ginsberg’s Howl in 1956 marks a turning point in the history of Beat literature, not to mention American literature in general. The long-form poem is intended to be …

The Enlightenment The Enlightenment, sometimes referred to as the Age of Reason, was a confluence of ideas and activities that took place throughout the eighteenth century in Western …